Originally posted by OrangeCream:Tf Microsoft only had 50% market share the malware writers would have to dedicated half their time to Mac and half to Windows, thereby reducing the malware problem on Windows significantly.

Hard to believe people STILL bring out this old discredited chestnut.

Where has this been discredited? I would like to update my information.

Everywhere. You'd have to be blind to not know that the argument about market share being the only reason for Macs begin safer is nonsense. They're not invulnerable, but that's a different argument.

I never said they were invulnerable, I said they were safer. I can actually give you math (I've alluded to it) to show you why. The internet is a scale free network and malware spreads according to a power law. From there you can trivially see that malware for Macs spread much slower than malware on a PC.

So much so that it's easy to see why no one writes malware for the Mac; it spreads so slowly that AV and OS vendors have more than enough time to write patches and people will be alerted before they are infected.

Essentially Windows has such a large market share that any particular malware can hit "epidemic" levels before news of the malware exists. Macs just have a much harder time to hit "epidemic".

"If you can determine beforehand that a system is a Mac and you can selectively target your malware to only attack Macs then yes, it is incredibly lucrative. However since there really isn't a good method to do so there is no value to that information. You spam all network nodes and hope you get enough clickers." --Orangecream

You obviously don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Windows malware is completely harmless to a Mac, even if a Mac owner is stupid enough to allow one of these nasties to land on his desktop. Windows executable files can't run on a Mac, period.

Originally posted by NateF:I do want to make clear, however, that I recognize market share does play some role. I simply believe it plays a lesser role than security, and perhaps more importantly, the handling/implementation of that security by Microsoft. Fortunately, Microsoft's handling of Windows Vista/7's security appears to be far better than that of Windows XP's security (Conficker infecting Vista PCs despite Vista's far smaller market share than XP's market share, notwithstanding).

The Vista thing can happen because attacks on unpatched Vista systems can piggyback on malware that uses XP as a carrier. If someone wrote a piece of malware that could somehow attack both XP systems and Macs, it would make every compromised XP system in the world an attack vector for Macs, and I expect that Mac systems would be attacked in significant numbers, and compromised to a degree similar to Vista systems.

Happily for Mac users, no one has written such a piece of malware. For that matter, I expect such a virus will remain purely hypothetical for as long as malware writers continue to have no great reason to target Macs.

Originally posted by alansky:"If you can determine beforehand that a system is a Mac and you can selectively target your malware to only attack Macs then yes, it is incredibly lucrative. However since there really isn't a good method to do so there is no value to that information. You spam all network nodes and hope you get enough clickers." --Orangecream

You obviously don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Windows malware is completely harmless to a Mac, even if a Mac owner is stupid enough to allow one of these nasties to land on his desktop. Windows executable files can't run on a Mac, period.

Actually, it would be technically feasible to write a virus that copied itself as a Windows executable when attacking a Windows system, and as a Mac executable when attacking a Mac.

There have been plenty of adaptive viruses over the years that don't have the exact same series of bits on each system to keep from being detected by a naive signature scanner. All that would be required to adapt to Macs is for part of the virus code to contain instructions for transferring itself in a Mac-executable fashion as well as in a PC executable fashion. Given that both systems run on x86 chips now, it would be much simpler than writing a virus that can execute on two completely different instruction sets.

For the foreseeable future, this is merely a hypothetical case, however.

Originally posted by NateF:when all it can take for an XP-running PC to be compromised is an internet connection,

Nonsense. The firewall is on by default and the system stays up to date on security patches automatically. Also, you're talking about an OS that Microsoft doesn't even sell anymore.

Tell that to the millions of XP users with Conficker, which blocks Windows Update.

And if Microsoft isn't the one licensing XP to netbook makers, who is? Apple?

Your original statement above is clear: it takes only an internet connection to get infected. This was in context with a statement about how Mac users would have to actually download and approve malware in order to be infected. So are you now saying (with 100% surety!) that "the millions of XP users with Conficker" didn't actually download and approve Conficker-infected malware, or disable the default firewall, or internet-accessible shares with bad passwords or no passwords at all? If you were, you'd be wrong. It does not just magically infect a firewalled machine connected to the internet without user intervention.

You're right, XP is still available on netbooks. An up and coming market, but hardly a majority. Thanks for pointing out my mistake, but I don't consider it a large one.

Originally posted by alansky:"It isn't market share that gets you infected, it's market share that gets you targeted." --Orangecream

Do you realize how many viruses the Mac would have if even 1% of the viruses out there were targeting Macs? No, of course you don't!

I was ignoring you out of politeness, but since other people already responded...

Mac marketshare is too low for a virus (or malware) to spread successfully. It would take much longer to accumulate a viable botnet. The gating factor is awareness of the malware, speed of update, and propagation of malware.

In essence with a 4% marketshare you would need to send many millions of attack vectors to acquire a reasonable sized botnet. With 96% marketshare you need only a million or two number of attack vectors. Guess which one is the Mac?

Everybody's market share numbers are bogus. None of them can be proved with any kind of accuracy. So now we have gotten that out of the way lets talk about the ads. The new Mac ads are just as stupid as the last MS laptop ads. What is wrong with you people. When was the last time you saw or heard truth in advertising? One of the things that the ads from these two companies has shown us is that actors will do anything for money. I really don't understand how intelligent people like you, who read Ars, could get sucked up in this stupidity. Please people, don't get so twisted out of shape because of corporate advertising. Furthermore I hope the writer of this article finds something a bit more interesting to write about from now on.

On to something else.Before anybody does say anything, I use Win7, Linux, Bsd. No Mac.

Originally posted by Eddie Wilson:Everybody's market share numbers are bogus. None of them can be proved with any kind of accuracy.

Yes we can. For our purposes we don't need to care if Macs have 3%, 4%, or even 6% market share. We know within 3% that Macs have somewhere between 3% to 5% market share and Windows has between 89% to 96%. These numbers are sufficient to establish that Mac malware would propagate over an order of magnitude slower than Windows malware.

quote:

So now we have gotten that out of the way lets talk about the ads. The new Mac ads are just as stupid as the last MS laptop ads.

And these ads are actually effective. That's why they are worth talking about.

quote:

On to something else.Before anybody does say anything, I use Win7, Linux, Bsd. No Mac.

Really?What was the point of this article?To instigate yet another pointless Microsoft vs. Apple forum war again?This whole article reads like an MS fan-boy pointing his fingers and bitching about the new Apple commercials.Jesus f'ing Christ, talk about beating a dead horse!

Some people like PC's some people like Mac's. I don't give a shit really because I use both.

Originally posted by kd9280:If you're not securing your Macbox with an anti-virus, then you're not protecting your computer and you are leaving it open to attack.

This is true, but generally speaking running a Mac without an anti-virus is less hassle than running a Mac with one. Antiviruses are some of the worst offenders when it comes to conflicting with the OS or third party software, and even at the very best cause regular slowdowns as they scan for infection. Most Mac users are more likely to have a conflict with an antivirus program than to encounter a Mac virus.

You have to balance the likelihood of infection, the potential damage, the difficulty of recovery, and the inconvenience of using an antivirus. Most Mac users won't ever encounter a virus, so as long as they back up important documents it's probably easier to do a clean install than to deal with an antivirus.

Malware is pretty freaking common on the PC side. I used to play WoW, and don't think I knew any PC players who never got hacked. I don't know if the holes have been patched, but keyloggers used to get into Vista through what appeared to be screenshots. For months the official forums were flooded with posts along the lines of "My teacher has sex legg" with links that would download keyloggers if you clicked them. Even if you don't get hit, you can't help but notice, and you almost certainly know someone who has been hit.

That`s odd. I play WoW quite a bit (on a real PC I built not some over priced tech ornament)and I`ve never encountered anyone on any of my guilds who`ve mentioned being hacked. Then again I`ve also never had my PC infected with a virus in 15+ years of computer use.

Just like Mac malware, the vast majority of Windows malware is caused by the end-users rather than any backdoors. I have been using Windows in various versions for many years, and have yet to have an infection. Even the stability issue is long-gone - it's at least as stable as OS X, and I don't think I've seen either Vista or 7 bluescreen. I've also noticed that most pieces of malware detected by a virus scanner are in the browser's cache, so aren't actually infecting the computer.

I actually bought a Macbook Pro a couple of months ago because the hardware just feels better quality than anything the PC manufacturers are making. Apple should really be pushing the quality of their hardware, and the deep links between hardware and operating system (OS X really should be more stable than Windows, considering Apple only has to deal with a very limited range of hardware), rather than pretending that malware is a problem only for Windows users.

Originally posted by goweb:Just like Mac malware, the vast majority of Windows malware is caused by the end-users rather than any backdoors. I have been using Windows in various versions for many years, and have yet to have an infection. Even the stability issue is long-gone - it's at least as stable as OS X, and I don't think I've seen either Vista or 7 bluescreen. I've also noticed that most pieces of malware detected by a virus scanner are in the browser's cache, so aren't actually infecting the computer.

I actually bought a Macbook Pro a couple of months ago because the hardware just feels better quality than anything the PC manufacturers are making. Apple should really be pushing the quality of their hardware, and the deep links between hardware and operating system (OS X really should be more stable than Windows, considering Apple only has to deal with a very limited range of hardware), rather than pretending that malware is a problem only for Windows users.

Well, isn't that why they integrated a basic scanner in the OS to catch the two trojans available for Mac?

This isn't rocket science, it's computer science and while PCs are less prone to viruses than they once were, they're still FAR more vulnerable than Macs and please, comparing viruses like OSX_JAHLAV.D to Conficker is just plain silly. Conficker has infected over 5 million computers and is doing really damage that costs real money, OSX_JAHLAV.D is catching a very few because to be infected you have to have downloaded a video (usually porn) and then have to be stupid enough to believe that a Mac update came from (in your own words) parishiltonsextapejamboree.com.

And as recently as this year Conficker had more than one way to get its hooks into Windows 7, so don't start beating the drums just yet, they may turn out to be that "dead horse" you were talking about!

Note to Windows Users: Se7en users, you're NOT in the clear. You're not in the clear today, you won't be in the clear tomorrow and you won't EVER be in the clear so long as Microsoft continues down the path that lead them here. Se7en has (thanks to Wired and John C. Dvorak):

The Registry: A Gobbledy Gook of unnecessary code that MS should have dumped several versions ago.

Not much improved security: One expert said, “Windows 7 still has all the security of a drunken teenager in a sports car . . . .”

DRM: You want Microsoft to add new layers of heavy-duty DRM to your media? This is Se7en. Microsoft LOVES DRM. If you love DRM, this is your OS.

Money, Money: Apple's new upgrade was $29. Guess how much Se7en will be? Yeah, lots more in a confusing array of "versions", only one of which (the most expensive) will have everything that OS X comes with in every box. Apple ships "Ultimate" to every Mac owner under the assumption that no one wants to be a second-class citizen.

It's Still Windows: You STILL have to tell it what do do with all your media and it still doesn't recognize devices that were actually MADE for it!! Sheesh!

So Microsoft, get RID of this ancient clunking piece of archaic crap. Quit bolting flashy new panels to creaky old crapola code and get with the program. Either go Cloud or rewrite it with something open-source . . . like Unix. But then you'd be copying Apple, right? Oh, yeah, you do that . . . .

Originally posted by chronomitch:It's not like Macs are magically impervious to malware and viruses. The only reason they don't get attacked so much is because of their relatively low market share....Sure, you can argue that there are some security mechanisms (mostly borrowed from Unix) which make a Mac more secure than a PC

Wow! The bullshit is flying fast and furious from the delusional Mac fanboys. I wouldn`t touch a Mac with a ten foot pole. They`re great if you like an incredibly over rated OS, virtually no choice in hardware, shit video cards and laughable upgrade options. I can find absolutely no compelling reason to own a Mac. My home built PC wipes the floor with any Mac crap at a fraction of the cost and it actually has the hardware do more than just e-mails, word processing, web browsing and photo editing.

Originally posted by Banquo:Wow! The bullshit is flying fast and furious from the delusional Mac fanboys. I wouldn`t touch a Mac with a ten foot pole. They`re great if you like an incredibly over rated OS, virtually no choice in hardware, shit video cards and laughable upgrade options. I can find absolutely no compelling reason to own a Mac. My home built PC wipes the floor with any Mac crap at a fraction of the cost and it actually has the hardware do more than just e-mails, word processing, web browsing and photo editing.

You can't home build a laptop. Nor can you home build an AIO. My iMac also does video and DVD editing, programming, and video conferencing.

Originally posted by Banquo:My home built PC wipes the floor with any Mac crap at a fraction of the cost and it actually has the hardware do more than just e-mails, word processing, web browsing and photo editing.

Actually, you can use Mac crap for more than e-mail, WP, browsing, and photo editing:

It's ironic because I thought that any Windows version from XP on could be secured. I know what I'm doing. I kept my machine updated. Completely patched and auto update is on.

I run outside of admin. I run with IE on standard settings. I have Windows Defender AND McAffee.

And yet just surfing on a site, I downloaded(no, it did NOT give me ANY prompt) and installed a a version of XP antivirus spyware on my machine. It rebooted and then on my system tray I had a red x that would pressure me to purchase the spyare.

It took 2 hours to remove this version of the spyare. TWO HOURS to dig through the registry...on an XP system that was fully patched, antispywared/virused and running out of admin.

I'm sorry but the commercials aren't a dead horse and any astroturfer that alludes to PC being as headache-free on viruses as a Mac, is just that...a shill...or worse a flat out liar.

Originally posted by pebblesonthemountain:It's ironic because I thought that any Windows version from XP on could be secured. I know what I'm doing. I kept my machine updated. Completely patched and auto update is on.

I run outside of admin. I run with IE on standard settings. I have Windows Defender AND McAffee.

And yet just surfing on a site, I downloaded(no, it did NOT give me ANY prompt) and installed a a version of XP antivirus spyware on my machine. It rebooted and then on my system tray I had a red x that would pressure me to purchase the spyare.

It took 2 hours to remove this version of the spyare. TWO HOURS to dig through the registry...on an XP system that was fully patched, antispywared/virused and running out of admin.

I'm sorry but the commercials aren't a dead horse and any astroturfer that alludes to PC being as headache-free on viruses as a Mac, is just that...a shill...or worse a flat out liar.

Correct.

1. The Mac commercials are still valid. I've dealt with different Malware including XP Antivirus and Antivirus Pro. It's not fun getting rid of this cr@p.

Cybercriminals like to follow those trends by making sure there's plenty of malware out there attached to celebrity names.

Replace celebrities with classical music, photographs of classic cars, recipies and so on. "Cybercriminals" flood the internet with fake websites and attach malware to what looks like legitimate files.

3. A Mac user doesn't have these problems. They don't need to hassle with finding, loading and maintaining antivirus/spyware software. They don't need to deal with antivirus/spyware software slowing down their system. They don't need to deal with removing malware.

* Considering this, using a Mac can be a big time saver for people who care about saving time. So, again the Mac commercials still point out an important advantage imo.

quote:Originally posted by pebblesonthemountain:It's ironic because I thought that any Windows version from XP on could be secured. I know what I'm doing. I kept my machine updated. Completely patched and auto update is on.

I run outside of admin. I run with IE on standard settings. I have Windows Defender AND McAffee.

And yet just surfing on a site, I downloaded(no, it did NOT give me ANY prompt) and installed a a version of XP antivirus spyware on my machine. It rebooted and then on my system tray I had a red x that would pressure me to purchase the spyare.

It took 2 hours to remove this version of the spyare. TWO HOURS to dig through the registry...on an XP system that was fully patched, antispywared/virused and running out of admin.

I'm sorry but the commercials aren't a dead horse and any astroturfer that alludes to PC being as headache-free on viruses as a Mac, is just that...a shill...or worse a flat out liar. Correct.

1. The Mac commercials are still valid. I've dealt with different Malware including XP Antivirus and Antivirus Pro. It's not fun getting rid of this cr@p.

It isn't fun. Yes, Vista is more secure than XP and yes, XP isn't as compromised as say...Windows 98, but saying that Windows is easy to secure and that just patching it is enough, as many people here state, is just total bollocks.

A large percentage of Windows users are using XP. For two reasons:

A. Because Microsoft failed to market, advertise and frame Vista as a worthy successor to XP.(perceptual)

B. Because Vista, in a real way, wasn't a worthy successor to XP. It was dog slow at the beginning(it's still slow in some things to this day) and requires far more hardware than XP.(reality)

I will always remember telling my ex-gf about how much better Vista was, in security, over XP and trying to congratulate her over her smart purchase of a nice Vista laptop(she was feeling bad she hadn't gotten a Mac), all the while I noticed her machine, patched, was already infected with spyware.

Is Vista safer than XP? Yes. Is XP still a big part of Windows? Yes. Is it still dog simple for even experienced, smart users to get infected with Windows? Sure.

And whether the reason is technical, or market-driven, the truth is, you are safer using a Mac.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I'm going to have to start running XP IE 8 on max security settings so that drive by's don't worm their way into my machine. Unbelievable.

Originally posted by chainsaw667:Its all about market share and possible victims. Windows the Current Big momma (installed base) dwarfs the fruitsy one. A terrorist will not go through the effort of bombing an outhouse in ohio, when they can take out a full skyscraper. Apple being the outhouse in this analogy, it simply is not worth the effort to infect such a small market share. By the same logic the same parallels could be drawn with BeOS, it is more secure than apple, because only 12 people use it.

Originally posted by Galeran:The thing is, ads like this aren't targeted at people who know what they're doing. Analyzing their arguments from one's own knowledgeable perspective will necessarily make the ads seem foolish.

Exactly. There are very few forum posters that understand that we are not the average user. People like us have chosen a platform already and aren't going to be swayed by TV ads.

It's not deceptive as, for the average user, viruses on PCs can be a problem. I, and they, couldn't care less if someone has never had a virus or malware on his PC, and never uses anti-virus software - that person not the average user. The average user clicks on popup-ads, downloads IE browser enhancements because they make your cursor into a pony, or whatever.